Jun 21, 2011 4:36 PM

i would be very grateful if anyone help me to identify this found "fossil"? its in approx 1.5" length, 0.5"in diameter in one end slightly smaller on the other end, colour is kind of an off amber ish, also it has a conical kind of a hole in larger end, its kind of made of a very fine layers. it feels like a shell.

This is a broken fragment of belemnite guard. Belemnites are extinct cephalopod molluscs, looking a bit like squid with long straight shells. The internal shells from belemnites are weights that balanced out the weight of the animals head. They are preserved in dense, fibrous calcite so fossilise well and are often found. Complete belemnite guards can be conical or bullet-shaped. The chambered phragmocone fitted into the non-pointed end of the guard and this allowed the animal to be horizontally balanced in water. This is rarely preserved and the conical space you can see inside your specimen is where the phragmocone would have fitted inside the belemnite guard. The diagram attached should explain what part of the animal and the guard you have here.

Belemnites are from the age of the dinosaurs and this is most likely from the Jurassic period, simply because this is the most common age of belemnites in the UK. This would make it around 200 million years old.

The attached information sheets explain a bit more about what belemnites are. Please get back to me if you have any questions.

wow, wow, what a knowledge, thanks ever so much for your reply luanne, ive got a horrible habit of seen things always in a funny way, sorry but i have to say, lol, basically you are telling me this piece is an ass, lol, god knows what im gonna find next, oh god cant stop laughing.